The Doctor's Lollipop
by Mireborn
Summary: The Doctor likes lollipops, especially mint flavoured ones. Amy is embarrassed.


"You realise you look ridiculous."

Dieter watched curiously as the woman and man emerged from the small blue craft. He often sat here at the space port with note paper and pen in hand just waiting for moments of inspiration like this. How often did tiny space craft just appear out of nowhere right in front of you with a wheezing groan? It was like magic, and from where he was sitting it looked like painted wood! How curious.

"Ah haf no idea wha you torking 'bout," the man said rather indignantly around the lollipop in his mouth, and his companion rolled her eyes.

"Of course you don't," she muttered, striding past Dieter without so much as a glance in his direction. "Why would you? Look at how you dress every day."

The man pulled the lollipop out of his mouth with a sucking pop. "Excuse me! I'll have you know this coat cost one hundred and fifty zertecs. Well…" he faltered. "It would have… if I'd actually paid for it." He rallied, pointing the red and white striped lollipop at the woman in an accusatory fashion. "Which I would have, but _someone_ – not mentioning any names – just had to drop a priceless, irreplaceable, necklace forcing us to flee suddenly from Tekkian warriors."

The woman whirled about, poking the man in the chest. "That wasn't my fault. _You_ were the one who decided to flail about like a demented marionette while I was holding it. Your elbow knocked it out of my hands."

"You'd flail too if a Criller Beatle decided to drop down the back of your shirt…"

As the pair bickered before him Dieter took quick notes in his unique shorthand. A story was forming in his head about a fiery redheaded space traveller and her young buffoon of a sidekick who was always getting them in trouble. After a few minutes of hasty scribbling Dieter realised it was quiet once more. He glanced up and saw his inspiration had moved on. Stuffing his notebook in his pocked Dieter took off after them. It wouldn't do to let them vanish quite yet.

"So why are we here?" the woman asked as Dieter caught up to them in the mingling crowd of the space port receiving lounge. She was pulling her flaming hair up into a bun as she walked and Dieter took a moment to admire the curve of her pale neck as he tapped his pen against his lips absently.

The man gave a few noisy sucks on his lollipop as he slowly turned 360 degrees, his eyes skating over Dieter without stopping as he took in his surroundings. "A'm not sure. Scanner 'nomaly."

"Can we lose the lollipop?" the woman sighed as she watched the man turn. "You look like such a child."

With another sucking pop he pulled it out of his mouth with a hurt expression. "But… it's mint flavour. My favourite."

The woman pressed her hands to her temples and shook her head. "Fine. Moving on. You said there was an anomaly?"

Retrieving his notebook from his pocket Dieter began to scribble away again, one eye on the couple in case they decided to leave the lounge. For the moment they seemed to be staying though. The man had pulled a tubular device with a clawed tip from his pocket and was pointing it in front of himself as he slowly repeated his 360 degree turn. The device emitted a high pitched whirring sound that set Dieter's teeth on edge. He shifted from one foot to the other and jabbed his pen in his ear with a wince. Now he had a headache.

"Well?" the woman asked impatiently as the man studied his device before thrusting it back in his pocket without a single change of expression. The lollipop returned to his mouth for another few sucks before he responded to his friend.

"The TARDIS picked up an anomaly in this sector of space." The man was scanning the room with his eyes once more and Dieter took a seat, grateful that his sudden headache was subsiding now. He began to take further notes as he listened to the man speak. "She narrowed it down to this space port, but there was too much interference for her to be more precise with the location."

"What sort of anomaly are we talking about?" The woman placed her hands on her hips and frowned at her companion as he rubbed a hand over his face, clearly reluctant to answer her. "It's the dangerous sort, isn't it?"

"It might be… just a teensy bit," the man mumbled.

"Of course it is. What other sort would the TARDIS spot?"

"Oi!" The man gave his lollipop a furious suck before pointing it at his friend again. "Don't be snide about my TARDIS. She's brilliant in a crisis."

"So this anomaly?" she reminded as the man looked around the lounge a third time.

"It's a little hard to explain, but it's a human."

The woman gave a derisory snort and spread her arms out to encompass the entirety of the receiving lounge. "Look around us, Doctor. We are surrounded by humans. How can _one_ be counted as an anomaly?"

Deiter looked up to see how the man called Doctor would respond to the obvious truth uttered by his companion, and found himself captured in the eye of a storm that had been raging for eternity. Deiter blinked in confusion and the Doctor returned his intimidating gaze to the woman.

"It's not that simple, Amy."

"When is it ever?"

The Doctor's brows drew together ominously and Deiter admired Amy's fortitude to be able to withstand the intensity of the man's glare.

"My, we _are_ a snide little human today." A couple more sucks on the lollipop and the Doctor ceased frowning. "The person we are looking for is a ticking time bomb. Well… they aren't actually ticking. If they were it would have made my job easier. BUT they are a bomb… of sorts."

"What?" The alarm on Amy's face was mirrored on Dieters. His inclination to write suddenly departed and he found himself studying the faces of the people milling around and walking past – as if they would have the word bomb tattooed on their forehead. Of course they wouldn't. _Don't be stupid_ , Dieter chastised himself.

"This person probably doesn't even know they are a danger to those around them." The Doctor was twirling the lollipop stick between his fingers as he spoke. The red and white lines of the flat, disc shaped, sweet blurring into a small pinkish globe.

"What do you mean?"

"This person has been plucked out of their fabulously ordinary, human life and altered. Someone, or something, cut them open and planted a z-neutrino compression field inside them. Presumably the trip switch is in the brain. Setting it would have erased all memory of the horror they had just been put through."

The pinkish globe spun and twirled and Dieter was finding it increasingly difficult to look away. A quick glance at the couple as they talked and his eyes were drawn back to the spinning globe on a stick.

"But… that's monstrous!" Amy objected, her shrill exclamation breaking briefly through Dieter's trance-like fixation upon the spinning blur of the lollipop.

"It is. If the trip switch in their brain is triggered that will be the end of this sector of space. The z-neutrino will be compressed into a single strand and it will cancel out all electrical connections between all atoms. Everything in this sector of space will be decomposed into its base components."

"We have to find them. Help them somehow." Amy sounded frantic, but Dieter found it hard to care. His notebook and pen slipped from his fingers and he forgot how to blink. The pink orb was coming closer.

"I already have." The Doctor's voice was close now and Dieter was vaguely aware of the presence of the man as he squatted before him, still spinning the entrancing pink globe. "Don't fight it. Sleep." The Doctor said softly, insistently. "I can help you. Just sleep… Sleep."

The last thing Dieter registered before the comfort of sleep took him was the woman speaking.

"Ok, Doctor. You win. I'll never mock you eating a lollipop in public again."


End file.
